


Hiraeth

by FatalViolet520



Series: Beautiful Words (beautiful you) [1]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: M/M, but it gets better!!, i tried to load up on the nostalgia oof, jisung is the mutual friend only here for plot development im sorry baby, open ending changlix, reference to implied depression, uh so like this is pretty soft i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 02:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16693477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FatalViolet520/pseuds/FatalViolet520
Summary: He’s found a home that he can’t ever return to, found a love he’ll never be able to hold and a life he’ll never get to live.He’s fallen in love with the memory of a boy who once lived here and sometimes fate plays a bigger part in one’s lives than one would think. He lives, and as he does, so does the memory of the boy who once lived too -Until they meet.





	Hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

> hello it is me ur local zero (0) impulse control hoe and i decided to write this instead of actually focusing on nanowrimo so :D also i wrote this in one day please dont have too high hopes sdfgd!!! 
> 
> This is the first part of the beautiful words (beautiful you) series that i will add to sporadically when i come across pretty words <3 so i hope you enjoy the first short fic of this series!! 
> 
> warning: felix suffers implied depression here, should be quite mild

[hir·aeth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiraeth)  
/‘hir,āeth/

_noun_

1\. longing for home, more than solely "missing something" or "missing home." 

2. implies the meaning of missing a time, an era, or a person; associated with the bittersweet memory of missing something or someone.

 

* * *

 

They say that tales begin by word of mouth, and maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. For Lee Felix, it starts when he moves into a house that’s as old as time, as young as him; a house that he knows has experienced things, and he sees it himself.

 

Sees it in the creaking wooden staircase that has stood the test of time and the peeling paint on the outside walls that hasn’t seen a new coast since the beginning and the frayed edges of the lovingly patched-up blankets that have been left behind and the oiled doors that have recently started to creak again and -

 

And them. The notebooks that had been tucked away in a small drawer he found by accident and there’s a world in them that he never thought words could bring. The notebooks have no name on them, no author and no clue as to who inked the words into the cream paper, now slowly browning with age and the black ink irreversibly stained into them. The notebooks are part of the house, old, though not obvious till one really looks, and they carry with them the scent of something.

 

(The scent of home, Felix realises later. The same scent, always.)

 

Felix didn’t know what they were at first. With nothing on the front covers, he’d flipped them open randomly on a whim - and had been surprised to find them crammed full of writing; his eyes skimmed past the first few lines then he had shut the book with surprising ferocity, heart thumping unsteadily in his chest. What he’d read wasn’t intensely private, but they were lyrics and he couldn’t bring himself to read the lyrics and thoughts of someone he’d never met before. Not when they were so heart wrenching.

 

(And not when he could relate to them, though no one needs to know that.)

 

But time passes and passes, and it’s been months since he found the notebooks, and through his neighbours, he’s found out it was a family with a boy and a girl who lived here, though the girl had left years previously for university and so it was mainly the boy they saw attending high school. So Felix concludes that it must be the boy who wrote in the notebooks, as the earliest entry he saw last time was dated three years previously, and the girl had left four years ago.

 

The temptation to read them burns, but he doesn’t need to read them, he reasons, he isn’t dying and the words don’t have a medicine that will cure him. So he doesn’t open the notebooks, just knows that they’re there when he wakes up and when he hovers between the realms of sleeping, the knowledge that they’re there never forgotten.

 

Until he needs them.

 

It’s one night that Felix opens the books to read them.

 

It’s one night where he can’t see out of the falling darkness and no warmth blooms in his chest despite the warmth around him, and everything is too far and he’s too scared to reach out. And he needs. Needs something that he doesn’t know he needs, doesn’t even know what it is. The night is dark and his room darker, but he takes the notebooks by muscle memory, and shifts the curtains, eyes desperately searching for something, needing something.

 

 _You’re doing good, you’re doing well_ , Felix reads on the second page, then reads it again and again and again and clings onto it as he fights through the night. It is his one glimmering light in a world without it and even though he hurts tomorrow will always come, because he’s here today.

 

“I’m doing good,” Felix repeats himself in the morning to the mirror that doesn’t serve its purpose, “I’m doing well.” The words aren’t medicine or a cure, but they help.

 

Now that he’s read that, Felix can’t help but keep going back to the notebooks, lyrics prettier and more bloody than anything he’s ever written, sentences that he didn’t know could resonate with him so encompassingly, words that he’ll remember and he’ll keep with him for the rest of his life. Time passes, but it passes with little hurry now, and he finds solace in the words of a boy he doesn’t even know, and it gives him more strength than he would like to admit.

 

“You’re happier now,” One of his friends says, months later since he started reading the books and almost a year has passed since he moved in, “You - You really are. I hope you stay as happy as you and only get happier.”

 

“Oh -” Felix murmurs, surprised by the sudden admission, “Th - Thanks.”

 

“You deserve only happiness,” His friend says again after a while, “You deserve to find a home with your happiness.” There’s genuine warmth in his eyes and Felix smiles, biting back a too-big smile.

 

“Thank you,” Felix says, but he’s already found his home.

 

He’s found his home in handwriting that looks oddly familiar, slightly slanted and narrow, words that often trail off and smudge when written in a hurry; he’s found his home in lyrics and sentences that comes to life in his mouth as songs that are too painful to actually sing aloud; he’s found his home in words that he loves, found his home in words that has made him fall in love with the mind of a boy he doesn’t know.

 

And yes, he’s naive, he’s young, he doesn’t know much about love and home and anything like that, but he knows that the words have saved him and given him life and let him look in and is that not love? Love, even though he’s scarred and hurting and the boy hurts too, showing in the words he writes; love, even though he has never met the boy; love, against all the rules of it that society has written.

 

Love, because he wants to, and because he just _has_.

 

It isn’t until he comes across an entry dated three years ago - three years, because it’s a new year for him of the present and him of the past - and the first line is simply, ‘ _I have a pen-pal now, and his name is Felix_.’ The short entry trails off into music notes and lyrics but Felix doesn’t read anything past that line, nothing registering in his head.

 

That one line changes him.

 

Because - Because - _Because_ Felix had a pen-pal three years ago, a boy by the name of Seo Changbin, and while the letters had never gone past interests and hobbies, he remembers the connection, remembers how much Changbin loved music and writing and he had in turn encouraged Felix to dance, to love music, to live and -

 

Felix leaves the notebooks scattered on the table and runs upstairs, his room feeling miles away and the stairs are never-ending, then he topples into his room and starts a whirlwind as his shaky hands search through old files and old books to find the letters he remembers receiving excitedly, and he _can’t see_ , _can’t look for them_ and they are -

 

Right there. Old and slightly fraying, yellowed, with the stamps peeling off and the edges torn, but still there, and Felix is young again, so young, standing in the doorway of his house and eagerly waiting for the post to arrive, taking the letter his mother hands him and rushes back to his room to open the letter with small fingers and tearing it open eventually but it’s all over now, he’s older and it’s _now_ and the letter in his hand is three years old.

 

This time when he opens the letter, it feels like there’s more lying on the line, more than just news it will bring. It doesn’t disappoint. _Fate_ ? asks the little voice in his head. _Coincidence_ , the logical part of him says, but Felix can believe.

 

The handwriting is the same. An exact carbon copy of the words in the notebook, and Felix is trembling, trying to come to the terms that he knows the boy who wrote these words, knows who helped him through the times when he felt he had no one.

 

Tries to come to terms that he’s fallen in love with someone he now knows. Someone that he will never meet again, because Changbin had abruptly moved away and his last letter to Changbin had been returned to him without being received. Tries to come to terms that he’s fallen for the memory of a boy who once lived here and the only trace of him is Felix keeping him alive.

 

Maybe because he hopes, or maybe because something tells him that there are bigger powers than him at work, he tries to find Changbin. He doesn’t know how at first. A quick search on social media sites gives him so many Seo Changbin’s that he gives up and turns to asking around instead. Yet no one knows why the Seo family moved away so abruptly, and neighbours don’t know. Felix doesn’t know any of Changbin’s friends, even though he’s read of their names in the notebooks, and doesn’t know which school Changbin went to, doesn’t know anything about him other than he loves words and loves music and loves.

 

Everything happens by chance, and maybe this is proof that larger powers than him are at work. _Fate_ , his mind whispers to him at night, and Felix tries not to entertain the thought of being fated, like in fairytales and love stories and happy-ever-after tales. Even so with this new revelation, life continues and his friend introduces him to a new friend who’s back visiting his hometown.

 

“I’m Han Jisung,” The boy says, “It’s nice to meet you.”

 

Felix tries not to let his surprise show. “I’m Lee Felix, it’s nice to meet you too.”

 

But Jisung’s surprise shows. “Wait - did you say - your name was Lee Felix?”

 

“Um - yes?” Felix says uncertainty, and his heart is thudding ferociously fast in his chest, remembering the name _Han Jisung_ inked several times throughout the book, a lifelong friend and someone who lived and breathed music too.

 

“I - My friend knows a Lee Felix,” Jisung eventually says after a while, like he needed to sort his thoughts, “He’s been looking for this guy named Lee Felix since he had to move away because he was his pen-pal. You - You didn’t happen to have a pen-pal called Seo Changbin, did you?”

 

As fate would have it, of course. Fate, because nothing can be this coincidental; fate, because he says yes and Jisung’s eyes widens and he calls Changbin and everything moves too fast; fate, because he finds himself waiting outside a coffee shop the next day, feeling too cold and too hot at the same time.

 

“You’ll be fine,” Jisung assures him, “I’ll leave when he comes so you guys can talk. Hyung’s really nice, so don’t worry!”

 

Felix nods, but he clutches the notebooks in his arms tighter.

 

It seems like forever, waiting for Changbin to arrive, watching each person pass by and waiting for them to stop and say that they’re Changbin. “Hyung’ll be a bit late, he’s caught up with his work,” Jisung says, and it passes over Felix’s head. They make small talk, getting to know each other, and Felix finds that he enjoys Jisung’s company, and they’re both laughing when a figure comes to stop in front of them without them even noticing.

 

“What, having fun without me?” A gruff voice teases, and Felix’s heart stutters to a halt in his throat.

 

“Hyung!” Jisung says, but Felix doesn’t hear it. The world zones out around him.

 

Changbin’s standing in front of him, soft smile and bright eyes and he is more than Felix had ever imagined, more than the smudged dark circles and weary aura he exudes slightly, more than the words and sentences that allowed Felix a glimpse into his mind.

 

“You must be Felix,” Changbin says, and he extends a hand, “I’m Changbin. I - I’m not sure if you remember me,” He says, laughing a little sheepishly, “But I was your -”

 

“Pen-pal,” Felix murmurs, “From 3 years ago. I know, hyung. It - It’s nice to finally meet you.”

 

(Beside them, Jisung slips away silently, biting back a teasing remark at the two of them clearly wrapped up in each other.)

 

For a moment, it’s just the two of them standing outside a coffee shop, two too-old teenagers with old feelings standing facing each other, each finding a home in words and solace in sentences. For a moment, it’s them, it’s Felix and Changbin in a world where heartbreak doesn’t exist and they’ve found their home. For a moment, it’s them.

 

The moment breaks too fast, and life continues.

 

“Here,” Felix says a little breathlessly, handing the notebooks he’d been clutching to Changbin after they look away from each other, shuffling a little, “I - I found these when I moved in -”

 

“When you moved in?” Changbin questions, taking the notebooks and flipping through them, “Wait - you moved into my old house?”

 

And it must be fate. Fate, because it’s them and nothing can ever happen the way it happened to them. Fate, because Felix had fallen in love twice and they’re both for the same boy, same man. Fate, because Changbin standing in front of him shouldn’t be possible, yet here they are.

 

“Here,” Changbin says, giving Felix a stack of letters, like it’s an exchange.

 

Letters. What seems like hundreds of them, each with no address but to the same ‘ _Lee Felix_ ’ on the front and dated weekly.

 

“You… You continued to write to me?” Felix asks, and his voice falters dangerously as he flips through the letters, the characters of his name never changing and always written with the same sloppy seriousness that Felix has come to love and recognise like his own.

 

“I could never forget you,” Changbin says, and he’s looking at Felix properly for the first time.

 

“Neither could I.” Felix says, “You saved me, hyung,” He whispers, and he meets Changbin’s gaze, believing for the first time that the brightness he sees are reflected in his own, “I found something to hold on because of you, hyung.”  

 

In tales, the happy ending never comes, for tales are of caution and warning.

 

In another world, this story might’ve been a tale for Felix to remind himself of being too naive.

 

But he’s in this world, and it’s not a tale in this world. It his reality, and his reality is home and warmth and Changbin, and homesickness does not exist because he’s found his home and it’s standing in front of him. Felix once longed for home, once longed to meet someone he knew he could never meet, but he doesn’t need to ever do that anymore. Home is a person, home is words from a person, and home is them and the scent of old and young at the same time, of ages that they will witness together.

 

“Together,” Changbin says quietly, and his handshake turns into something else.

 

“Together.” Felix agrees, and the rest is a tale.

**Author's Note:**

> NOW THAT HAS ENDED AH PLEASE LEAVE KUDOS/COMMENTS!! IF YOU LIKED IT BC I LOVE COMMENTS ASDF (and i should be updating get lost pt.2 tomorrow!!)


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